I'll tell you all about it (when I see you again)
by Taisi
Summary: She would live for a million years, but she'd never forget his laugh. (Renet/Mikey, oneshot.)


A/N: I've _never_ written Renet before (this piece certainly won't do her bubbly personality any justice) and I usually steer clear of romance, but I had to get this out of my system. It's based on an idea moogsthewriter had over on tumblr, so it only makes sense that I dedicate it to her! If you haven't checked out her stories, I highly recommend you do so, they're of a higher caliber.

Enjoy!

* * *

It would have been easier not to love him.

But he grabbed a fistful of her cape and hauled her close and _kissed_ her, in front of the whole rebel faction, in front of his brothers and adopted family and the friends that followed them to war, and she was compelled by a force she didn't understand to throw her staff down, wind her arms around his neck, and kiss him back.

He was going to die today. Renet knew. She peeked ahead.

Mikey must have known, too—he wasn't a timester, he didn't have the magic or the understanding that she did, but he was perceptive in a way that was all his own, could read her like a book in every way that mattered. And when they parted, he was smiling.

"When you go back, make sure we do _that_ more."

She blinked through tears as the rebel army took its stand, and nodded. Mikey's place in the revolution was on the front line with his brothers, and they were waiting for him, but he lingered for a moment that wasn't his to spare, pressing his brow to hers.

"And when you go back, make sure it doesn't come to this," he added, softly, and she dug her fingers into his bandolier and held him as tight as she could, like somehow it would make a difference if the Universe understood how much she loved him.

It wouldn't. She already knew.

* * *

She met him by accident.

"Show me something _fun,"_ she'd whispered to the Orb, almost bored to tears in the lonely expanse of Null Time. The Orb shone, and delivered; showing her a rooftop in New York City, and a turtle with an armful of water balloons, and Renet had never been bored since.

She followed them when she could, through the Orb, from the castle. Peeked ahead into their future only when she couldn't bear to wait, only when she was so worried she couldn't stand it.

And then just watching wasn't enough. She wasn't allowed to interfere, not in big ways—she didn't have that kind of authorization as an apprentice. But she could get away with just a _little…_

She dropped hints where she could, the cartoons and comic books they frequented. It usually didn't help very much, but it made her feel better, and every time Michelangelo would tilt his head and squint his eyes and say, "Don't you guys ever feel like someone's trying to _tell_ us something?" it felt as though someone was actually _listening_ to her.

It was a feeling she fell in love with, long before she fell in love with him.

* * *

The bomb was ticking quietly across the room, and the end of the countdown would bring the last of the Shredder's empire falling to rubble and ruin. The war was over, their enemies fallen, their comrades escaped, and one final detonation would bring sure victory at last.

Mikey smelled like metal and sweat, his freckles lost under a layer of grime and soot. His skin was rougher than it used to be—unevenly textured with smooth scars and rough burns, hard-earned and undeserved—and he only had one arm to wrap around her. But Renet sank against him anyway, turning her face into the crook of his neck and hiding her tears where no one would see.

He felt so very much alive, for a person dying. It didn't make sense how warm he was, how his heart could beat so strongly, when she knew he only had moments left. His brothers were gone already; beside him, still and silent, an arm's length and a universe away.

Mikey, as always, would catch up to them soon.

Renet could save him. There was always time. She could take him to a dimension of medicine and magic, and he could heal, and she wouldn't have to learn this impossible hurt, she wouldn't have to know this heartbreak.

She could do it. Looking at him looking at her, the soft summer blue of his eyes, the lopsided curve of his smile, she felt unparalleled. Space and matter and time itself were fleeting and transitory in the face of how much she loved him, how far she would go for him. She would do anything, _anything—_

But she couldn't give him his brothers. And the immortal fire in her heart fell to burning embers, because she couldn't give what it would cost to keep him.

So she kissed his face, slick and salty as it was with tears, and let her lips linger there because it would be the very last time. And when she was able, she smiled.

"Tell the boys I said hi."

And she would live for a million years, but she'd never forget his laugh.

* * *

"It's, like, _really_ nice to meet you," she said, for the very first time. "My name's Renet!"

She was in more trouble than she'd ever been in before. She made her escape to a song of wailing alarms, her boss' scepter clutched tight in hand. She'd have to return to Null Time _eventually,_ and she'd probably have to scrub the whole castle with a toothbrush when she got back, but for now—

When she put out her hand, he took it without the barest breath of hesitation, the way she'd known he would from watching him for so long. She knew him _before_ she knew him, knew he was kind without forethought or parameter, trusting and naïve in a way that made his family equal parts fondly exasperated and fiercely protective, and she knew he would take her hand.

What she didn't know at that point was that she would spend countless warm afternoons with him, and show him places all around the world through a magic window in his bedroom, and kiss him at dusk in Central Park more than a dozen times, and she didn't know that one day in the far future, she would pick up a stolen Time Scepter and follow him into war.

In the present, she wrapped her fingers around his, and found herself memorizing his smile.


End file.
